Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/541

 10 s. vm. DEC. 7, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

447

Hume and Macaulay (' Essay on Lord Nugeiit's Memorials of Hampden ') speak of the embarkation of both Cromwell and Hampden as a fact, but Carlyle (' Life of Cromwell,' i. 95) is more cautious :

"It was on this occasion [i.e., in 1641] that Oliver, ' coming downstairs,' is reported to have said, He would have sold all and gone to New England, had the Remonstrance not passed a vague report gathered over dining - tables long after, to which the reader need not pay more heed than it merits."

Green (' History of the English People,' chap, viii., ' Puritan England ') notes :

" The story that a royal embargo alone prevented Cromwell from crossing the seas" is probably un- founded, but it is certain that nothing out the great change which followed on the Scotch rising pre- vented the flight of men of the highest rank."

Hampden purchased a tract of land on the Narragansett (p. 499).

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

WHITEHALL BANQUETING HALL. The Morning Post'oi 28 November contained a pretty full report of a lecture delivered the previous day at the Royal United Ser- vice Institution by Canon Sheppard, Sub- Dean of His Majesty's Chapels Royal, on " Whitehall Palace and the Site of the Execution of Charles I.' Towards the close of his lecture the Canon quoted the well- known passage in Herbert's ' Memoirs, ' adding that he

" inclined to the view that the King was executed under the second or third window of the Banqueting House, facing the Horse Guards, and that the window from which he stepped on to the scaffold was the one indicated in the view of Vertue's a window that was in a small building abutting on the north side of the present Banqueting House."

H. B. W.

[Two long articles on the question " Out of which window of the Banqueting House did the King pass to the scaffold?" including many quotations from various writers on King Charles's execution, were contributed by MR. WYATT PAPWOBTH at 3 S. iii. 213; iv. 195.J

JOHN SERGEANT. The list of his works in the ' D.N.B.,' li. 252-3, should have included the following : ' Reason against Raillery ; or, a Full Answer to Dr. Tillotson's Preface against J. S.' (anon.), 1672, 8vo.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

SPRING HILL PARK : DIVERSION OF PATH. A year or two ago the London County Council acquired a residential property with a fine park in Stamford Hill, sloping down to the edge of the Lea, and separated therefrom by a rustic lane. On the left of this lane are sundry strips of land, which,

I have understood, are to be appropriated towards extending the area of this splendid new lung. To effect this, it is the intention of the Hackney Borough Council to apply early in January next, to the magistrates in Quarter Sessions assembled, for per- mission to divert part of this ancient path- way, so as to give access to Spring Hill, but higher up than it does at present, and nearer to the top of the hill. Perhaps a record of this topographical change deserves to be kept in these columns.

M. L. R. BRESLAR.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addressees to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

ABBACYRTJS: ABOTTKIR: PASSERA. These three names the name of the martyr St. Cyrus, formerly honoured at Menouthis in Egypt ; the name of the famous bay near Alexandria ; and the name of Santa Passera, to whom a church is dedicated on the Via Porto in Rome are said to be connected by the learned Bollandist Pere Hippolyte Delehaye in his interesting book ' Les Legendes Hagiographiques,' the second edi- tion of which has lately been published in Brussels. On p. 55 M. Delehaye says :

"H arrive que, sous 1'influence des lois pho- netiques, les noms de certains saints deviennent meconnaissables. II existe pres de Rome, sur la voie de Porto, une petite e"glise champetre d4- pendante de la basilique de Santa Maria in via lata, connue sous le vocable de Santa Passera. Quelle est cette sainte que 1'on cherche en vain dans les calendriers? Croirait-on que son nqm, comme sa chapelle, doit rappeler la translation des reliques des saints Cyr et Jean, les martyrs autrefois honores a Memouthis, pres d'Alexandrie Saint Cyr, <x/3/?a Kupo?, Abbacirus, a fini par se transformer en Passera."

The following foot-note is added :

" Abbacyrus, Abbacfro, Abbaciro, Pacero, Pacera, Passera, telle est la se"rie des metamorphoses relevees par M. Tomassetti dans FArchivio storico romano, t. xxii. p. 465. Passera et Abouquir sont done rigoureusement Equivalents."

Now it would be interesting to know whether the equation of the name Aboukir with the Greek d(3/3a. Kvpos is generally accepted by geographers and hagiographers. I cannot find that any attempt at explaining the name Aboukir has ever been made by etymologists. Perhaps some reader of ' N. & Q.' will be able to throw light upon